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[Jasen Chung .]

Hi Everyone,

Simple question - so I have two stage pianos used for Pad & Keyboard Patches for church worship. I have a mono system in essence with two danley SH96's on the side and two DBH218's floated in the middle. Both seating areas are to the left and right of the subs. I right now use both left and right outputs and put them into individual channels and then pan them hard left and right. Is this even necessary in my set up? I'm wondering if this is why I'm having trouble mixing these two instruments.

Thoughts?

[John Rutirasiri]

Jasen, short answer is no, you don't need to take stereo outs from the keys.  Just use the left (mono) output from each keyboard.

What do you mean you have "trouble" mixing the two keyboards?  Trouble as in it sounds thin like there's phase cancellation going on?

As a keyboard player who used to give sound techs grief when told I'm being mixed in mono (aren't we keyboard players special?), when I encounter keyboard players who 'demand' to be mixed in stereo, I just let them have it their way.  At the mixer, I leave it panned hard L/R as you have it.  Sounds like it's in stereo through the headphones and in the recording, but to the FOH it's still the mono out from the console, or the L/R out of the console mixed to mono through the speaker processor.

JR

[Jasen Chung .]

How would i be able to tell if theres phasing issues? It's just hard to mix the bottom end and get clarity on the piano. I have a lower line of the Yamaha CP and a Roland Stage Piano GX700 (I think thats the model) - both with great patches but don't know why its hard to mix. I EQ like crazy too.

Jasen, short answer is no, you don't need to take stereo outs from the keys.  Just use the left (mono) output from each keyboard.

What do you mean you have "trouble" mixing the two keyboards?  Trouble as in it sounds thin like there's phase cancellation going on?

As a keyboard player who used to give sound techs grief when told I'm being mixed in mono (aren't we keyboard players special?), when I encounter keyboard players who 'demand' to be mixed in stereo, I just let them have it their way.  At the mixer, I leave it panned hard L/R as you have it.  Sounds like it's in stereo through the headphones and in the recording, but to the FOH it's still the mono out from the console, or the L/R out of the console mixed to mono through the speaker processor.

JR

[Jeff Carter]

How would i be able to tell if theres phasing issues? It's just hard to mix the bottom end and get clarity on the piano. I have a lower line of the Yamaha CP and a Roland Stage Piano GX700 (I think thats the model) - both with great patches but don't know why its hard to mix. I EQ like crazy too.

The easiest way to detect phasing issues between the two inputs is to mute one side and see if the tone drastically changes (by rights you should probably bump the other input up a little to keep the level the same).

What's your monitoring situation? On-stage wedges won't control the pattern very well at low frequency, and if you don't keep a tight leash on keys volume in the wedges you can get a bunch of low-frequency wash off the stage--I find string patches are especially bad for this.

[John L Nobile]

Most stereo piano patches are just lowest notes panned left and progressively panned right as they get higher. I've always done a mono feed for piano because of that as I don't find it very realistic unless you're the one sitting there playing it.  It seems to sit better in the mix.
All other patches are in stereo. My string patches are panned more like an orchestra with violins more left to basses more right. Probably not ideal but my FOH is in the middle so I get the full effect.
I used to play keys and I had to watch what my left hand was playing. The keyboard players have to be aware that their left hand is in the bass players region and if they're going to play that low, they have to double the bassist or play higher notes. Get's even worse when the player doesn't have good chops and hits 2 low notes instead of one.
I'll always roll the lo end off the piano and put it back if it's just him playing. I'm also wondering if the problem may be coming off the monitors. Where are you high passing the monitors? We have the same setup except my 96's are the HO model. Same subs. The cast gets plenty off bass from the 218's so I can highpass pretty high.
We don't have a keyboard player as we don't have the budget so we use computer tracks through Logic. Lots of keyboard parts but if I have a patch with too much bottom, I can edit the sequence. 

BTW, how do you like your PA? I'm loving mine. Always had problems with PA's in the room that it's in but the Danley's have turned mixing from a struggle to a pleasure.

[Chris Penny]

In my experience it is a bit of "it depends".  This can be keyboard, patching and system dependent.  At a previous church with a mono P.A I found for our keyboard mixing in stereo (hard pan L/R) and using the mixers mono summing bus sounded better than just taking the mono send. However, for a different keyboard it actually sounded better using the mono out from the keys and running it mono through the system.   

Unfortunately I think it is a case of test both and see what you prefer.

[Luke Geis]

These days a lot of the Keyboard patches are in stereo. However the L/Mono output should be a summing output that combines the left and right together. I have not come across any major issues with taking both the left and right signals and leaving them panned up the middle. You will have to experiment with one side only vs. both sides summed together to tell if there is cancellations. My bet is no. Having two piano's may be the major issue though. If both are essentially panned up the middle you have two of basically the same thing fighting for space in the mix. Generally the way to fix that is to EQ them differently and pan them respectively in the stereo field. Just because an instrument is in stereo does not mean it needs to be hard left and hard right, it is still acceptable to pan one side hard and leave the other near the center. This should place emphasis for the instrument in the direction of it's panning while still having a small amount of stereo effect. 

[Lee Douglas]

Just because an instrument is in stereo does not mean it needs to be hard left and hard right, it is still acceptable to pan one side hard and leave the other near the center.

Exactly.  It's a pan knob not a pan switch.  Too many people treat it like it has three settings; Left, Center and Right.  Although depending on the coverage of your system and the room it's in, panning may not be desirable or even helpful.

[Steve M Smith]

Two mics on a Leslie cabinet - yes.  Everything else - no.


Steve.

[John Rutirasiri]

It's just hard to mix the bottom end and get clarity on the piano.

There was a recent post here on the keys being muddy in the mix that you can search.  You have to keep in mind that the lower octaves of most piano and string patches contain a ton of low end information.  I mean a TON.  You can almost say electronic keyboards are 20Hz - 20KHz instruments.   Have a few notes sustaining, add the patch's reverbs and effects, factor in the mind-blowing dynamic range, then do it again with the 2nd keyboard and yes your mix will be dense if you don't EQ out some of the lows.

You might also check where the front panel EQ sliders on those digital pianos are at.  I often have to contend with keyboardists that bump the lower band EQs so they can hear more bass out of their keyboard amps or wedges.

If your mixer has phase reversal switch on the channel strip, make sure it's set the same for L and R channel of a particular keyboard, or that'll be a sure way to get phasing issue.

When I have more than 3 keyboards in the mix, I usually assign the keys to a separate bus and insert a GEQ to tidy up the mix.

Finally, I'd advise against taking the outputs from a keyboard amp into the FOH.  Any EQ adjustments on the amp will affect your mix.  It's better to use DI's and feed the "thru" onto the keyboard amp.


Best,
JR

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